Pak police arrest Sri Lankan cricket team attacker

Dera Ghazi Khan: One of the terrorists involved in the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team in Lahore has been reportedly arrested in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

According to reports, police had arrested Adnan Khosa for a bank robbery in Dera Ghazi Khan district, but upon interrogation, he confessed that he and his father, Qari Irshad, had been involved in the attack on the team.

Khosa and his father had fled the country after the attack, and had only recently returned from Dubai.

Soon after the attack, police had arrested a man named Zubair, who had mentioned an accomplice by the name of Adnan Khosa during his interrogation.

According to police sources, Zubair had even identified the town – Shah Fateh Hilal Azmat – where Khosa lived.

The attack occurred on March 3, 2009, when a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers was fired upon by 12 gunmen, near the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

The cricketers were on their way to play the third day of the second Test against Pakistan. Six members of the Sri Lankan team were injured. Six Pakistani policemen and two civilians were killed.

These were the first attacks on a national sports team since the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants in 1972.

The attack was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the outlawed militant groups with close links to Al-Qaeda.